Queen Takes Rose Review — Is It Worth Reading?

Updated on October 8, 2026

Verdict: A Sleeping Beauty/Maleficent sapphic mafia romance with real Domme/submissive chemistry and 5/5 heat, undercut by a thinner plot and a power dynamic reviewers call a rehash of the series’ earlier books.

Best for: Readers already invested in Wicked Villains who want an explicit f/f Domme/submissive pairing and a fairy-tale-villain premise, and who can forgive a plot leaning on five prior books’ goodwill to land.

Heat level: ★★★★★ (5/5 — explicit and plentiful)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.4/5 — a 3.59 Goodreads average moderated by consistent complaints about thin plotting and a repetitive dynamic)

Tropes: Sapphic dark mafia romance, Sleeping Beauty/Maleficent retelling, Domme/submissive dynamic, enemies-to-lovers, age gap, forced proximity, vengeance and second chances, dual POV, series finale, HEA.

Queen Takes Rose by Katee Robert is the sixth of seven books in her self-published dark romance series Wicked Villains, set in the criminal-underworld Carver City universe — a separate universe from Dark Olympus, the Katee Robert series it is sometimes confused with — retelling Sleeping Beauty and Maleficent as a collision between Malone, the territory leader every other Carver City boss fears, and Aurora, the woman she keeps circling back to and can’t make herself let go.

It holds a 3.59 average across 15,217 Goodreads ratings and 1,341 written reviews, a professionally produced dual-narrator audiobook edition available across Audible, Chirp, and half a dozen other platforms, and a review split that runs deeper than the headline number suggests: three stars, not five, is the single largest rating bucket, at a third of the total. Both halves of that split are worth understanding before you start.

What Is Queen Takes Rose About?

Queen Takes Rose is a dark romance and a fairy-tale retelling at once — Carver City is Katee Robert’s recurring criminal-underworld setting, which means the stakes here run through territory, loyalty, and violence rather than boardrooms or ballrooms, and the Sleeping Beauty framing means the book is built around a woman being drawn toward — and eventually claimed by — a power she can’t outrun.

Aurora is the one without the reputation: she’s spent the earlier books on the margins of Carver City’s power structure, wanting Malone in a way she’s never let herself act on. Malone assumes she’s the villain of her own story — Carver City’s most feared territory leader has built her identity around being the thing everyone else in the city fears, and around not letting anyone close enough to test that. The book runs dual POV with first-person elements, giving the reader both the fear Aurora works through and the walls Malone has spent years building, from inside each.

What Makes This Sapphic Dark Mafia Romance Work

• The sapphic rep: Queen Takes Rose is the f/f entry in a Wicked Villains series otherwise built on m/f and poly pairings, and readers across the sweep repeatedly call that choice valuable and overdue.
• The Domme/submissive chemistry: The power exchange between Malone and Aurora is named a highlight by readers specifically for this book, on top of the heat itself.
• Aurora’s arc: More than one reviewer describes her journey as coming “full circle,” with real growth rather than a fairy-tale girl waiting to be claimed.
• The retelling concept: Turning Maleficent into a mafia queen and Sleeping Beauty into the woman who chooses her is the kind of fairy-tale-villain reimagining Robert built her career on, and it’s praised as creative here specifically.
• A closing note for six-book readers: At least one reviewer frames this as the emotional close of the Wicked Villains line, with real satisfaction in watching it land.

Book Synopsis

Aurora has spent years on the edges of Carver City’s underworld, watching Malone run her territory with a reputation nobody crosses twice. Malone is the closest thing the city has to a living warning — the boss other bosses go out of their way to avoid provoking — and Aurora has wanted her for longer than she’s willing to admit, even to herself.

When circumstance finally forces the two of them into each other’s orbit, Aurora stops being able to keep the wanting theoretical. Malone doesn’t do things by half — not violence, not territory, and not the woman she decides she wants to keep. What starts as proximity becomes something neither of them planned for: Malone claiming Aurora the way she claims everything else in her city, and Aurora discovering that being wanted that completely is not the same thing as being safe.

Vengeance sits underneath all of it — old scores from Carver City’s history that neither woman can fully set down, and a second-chance thread that ties Malone’s past to the choices she’s making now. The closer Aurora gets, the more she has to decide whether she can survive being folded into Malone’s world without losing whatever is left of her own — and whether Malone can let herself be known by someone she’d normally treat as a liability. Neither of them planned on the other becoming the exception. Carver City doesn’t forgive exceptions easily, and by the time Aurora understands exactly what she’s agreed to, backing out is no longer the option it once was.

My Review

What’s genuinely good here, and I want to lead with it, is the concept: turning Maleficent into a mafia territory boss and Sleeping Beauty into the woman who finally chases her rather than waits to be woken is a sharper fairy-tale-villain reimagining than the premise suggests, and it’s the thing Katee Robert built Wicked Villains on doing well. Queen Takes Rose delivers that concept cleanly, and the fact that this is the series’ one f/f entry — inside a run that’s otherwise m/f and poly — makes it land as more than a novelty.

The second real strength is the Domme/submissive dynamic between Malone and Aurora, which readers across the sweep name specifically as this book’s highlight, separate from the heat itself. It works because Aurora’s arc does real work rather than sitting still as a passive fairy-tale heroine — more than one reviewer describes her coming full circle, gaining a complexity a simple “woman gets claimed by a dangerous boss” logline wouldn’t promise.

Where it struggles is the plot, and this is not one critical reader’s pet complaint — it’s the most consistently named weakness across the Goodreads aggregate and the independent blog reviews found. The story reads thinner than earlier Wicked Villains entries, and the Domme/sub structure draws real criticism for repeating what the series already did: one reviewer flatly says the central romance felt flat enough that she skimmed their scenes rather than sat in them, and another notes plot elements bleeding in from a different Robert title, Sabine Valley, that don’t fully belong here. A third note: this entry trades earlier books’ ensemble energy for something more insular, a two-hander some readers miss the wider Carver City cast inside.

One thing worth calibrating: the 24/7 nature of Malone and Aurora’s submission dynamic, rather than the scene-specific negotiated BDSM of earlier books, reads as more monotonous to at least one critical reviewer — and a separate, more positive reviewer independently notes the spice lands slightly lower than the series’ peak, without framing that as a complaint. If you’re fresh off an earlier Wicked Villains entry expecting that same rhythm, adjust; if the point for you is watching Malone claim Aurora completely, this delivers exactly that.

My honest note: A strong retelling concept and a genuinely compelling power dynamic, running on a plot thinner than the five books before it. If you’re finishing the series, the chemistry and the sapphic rep make it worth the trip; if this is your first Katee Robert book, start earlier in Wicked Villains instead.

Element	In Queen Takes Rose
Central relationship	Malone & Aurora — feared Carver City territory leader and the woman she claims, Domme/submissive dynamic
Core tropes	Sleeping Beauty/Maleficent retelling, enemies-to-lovers, age gap, forced proximity, vengeance and second chances
Setting	Carver City — Katee Robert’s recurring criminal-underworld mafia universe (Wicked Villains series)
Heat level	5/5 — explicit and plentiful
Series	Wicked Villains book 6 of 7 — resolved HEA, followed only by a shorts/epilogue collection
Content notes	Explicit sexual content and BDSM pain play (caning, flogging, orgasm deprivation, bondage), assault, parental abandonment, death of a mother after a 20-year coma and an end-of-life decision, grief and loss

How Spicy Is Queen Takes Rose?

A full 5/5. romance.io rates Queen Takes Rose “explicit and plentiful” — its top band — and reader reviews back that up directly: the Domme/submissive chemistry between Malone and Aurora is named as a specific highlight, not just the heat generally, and Robert’s fanbase treats this level of explicitness as a primary reason to pick up the series in the first place.

The one thing worth flagging in advance is the 24/7, not-scene-specific nature of Malone and Aurora’s submission dynamic, which at least one reviewer found reads as more monotonous than the negotiated-scene BDSM in earlier Wicked Villains books — worth knowing if that structure matters to you, though no reviewer raises it as a harder consent concern beyond that. If you want this same band of heat elsewhere, Her Wrath runs a comparably dark mafia Domme dynamic, and Tryst Six Venom sits in the same explicit band through an enemies-to-lovers engine instead.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you’re already invested in Wicked Villains and want to see it close out, you want an explicit f/f Domme/submissive dynamic as the centerpiece, you’re drawn to a mafia-boss Maleficent retelling, and you can enjoy a two-hander without the earlier books’ full cast around it.

You may want to skip it if: you want a tightly plotted book over one carried by chemistry and concept, you’re new to Wicked Villains and want the series at its strongest first, you need scene-specific negotiated BDSM over a 24/7 dynamic, or you want a true standalone with no series context required.

In short: a satisfying series closer for existing fans, built on real chemistry and a thinner plot than the books that came before it.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

There’s no viral BookTok moment or trade-press coverage driving new readers to Queen Takes Rose — targeted searches for Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist coverage turned up nothing, which tracks for a title from Robert’s own indie imprint, Trinkets and Tales, rather than a trade publisher. What is actually happening is steadier: 15,217 Goodreads ratings have accumulated since the book’s November 2020 release, a handful of independent romance bloggers have reviewed it directly, and a professionally narrated dual-cast audiobook is available across Audible, Chirp, and several library-lending platforms — slow, compounding discovery rather than a single spike.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The sapphic representation comes up first and most consistently — this is the f/f entry in an otherwise m/f-and-poly series, and readers repeatedly call that choice valuable and overdue. The retelling concept itself draws real praise, and Aurora’s arc gets singled out — more than one reviewer describes her as coming “full circle” and genuinely lovable by the end. The Domme/submissive chemistry and the heat generally are named as highlights, and the dual-narrator audiobook — Lacy Laurel and Jenny Nordback — gets specific praise for performance. For readers who’ve followed the whole series, the payoff of watching it conclude is real; one blogger’s only stated regret was that the series was ending.

What readers argue about and complain about: Thin plot and underdeveloped characterization, above everything — the throughline of the Goodreads aggregate, recurring across every independent review found. Second, a repetitive dynamic: the Domme/submissive structure feels to several readers like a rehash of earlier books rather than something new, and its 24/7, not-scene-specific nature reads as more monotonous than the negotiated scenes earlier entries used. Third, subplot bleed — one reviewer flags plot elements from Sabine Valley, a different Robert title, spilling in where they don’t fully belong. Fourth, a loss of ensemble energy: earlier books ran on a wider Carver City cast, and this entry is more insular. Where readers genuinely split: one found the central romance flat enough to skim, while another calls Aurora’s arc lovable and the series conclusion an earned payoff for five books’ investment — both readings show up in the sweep, and neither is a fringe view.

The series question everyone should ask first: Queen Takes Rose is book six of Wicked Villains’ seven-entry run, and it is not a true standalone — the payoff depends on the five books before it, and at least one reviewer treats this explicitly as the series’ ending. No cliffhanger turns up anywhere in this sweep, and book seven is a shorts collection rather than a continuation of the plot, so nothing about this entry is left open. If you haven’t read the rest of Wicked Villains, start there — this book rewards that investment, not stands in for it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Queen Takes Rose end on a cliffhanger?

No. It resolves with an HEA for Malone and Aurora, and no reviewer in this sweep reports an unresolved thread — the emotional close of Wicked Villains’ six-book main line, followed only by a shorts collection.

Is Queen Takes Rose part of the Dark Olympus series?

No — a common mix-up. It’s book six of Wicked Villains, Robert’s separate dark-romance series set in Carver City. Dark Olympus retells Greek mythology with an unrelated cast and setting.

How spicy is Queen Takes Rose?

A 5/5. romance.io rates it “explicit and plentiful,” its top band, and readers name the Domme/submissive dynamic as a specific highlight rather than an incidental feature.

Do I need to read the rest of Wicked Villains first?

Not strictly, but you should want to. This is book six of seven, and the series-conclusion satisfaction readers describe depends on having followed Malone and the wider cast through the earlier entries.

Is there an audiobook of Queen Takes Rose?

Yes. A dual-narrator edition — Lacy Laurel and Jenny Nordback — is available on Audible, Chirp, Apple Books, Kobo, and several library-lending platforms. Runtime and Audible’s star rating weren’t available to confirm.

Is Wicked Villains a finished series?

Effectively, yes. Queen Takes Rose is the sixth of six main novels, and the only entry after it is a shorts collection rather than a new main-line book.

If You Loved Queen Takes Rose, Read These Next

Readers who want the same dark mafia Domme energy at the same heat level should look at Her Wrath, which runs a comparably explicit power dynamic through an older-woman mafia matriarch instead of Malone’s territory-boss version. For the same explicit band through an enemies-to-lovers engine rather than a claiming dynamic, Tryst Six Venom delivers a comparable intensity. And for a mafia-boss age-gap romance with the same obsessive pull at a lower heat band, Mafia Mommy’s Sweet Obsession is worth a look. For more in this vein, browse the Dark Romance category or the full Book Reviews archive.

The Bottom Line

Queen Takes Rose sets out to close Wicked Villains on a sapphic Sleeping Beauty/Maleficent retelling, and the ambition mostly pays off: the Domme/submissive chemistry is genuinely compelling, the sapphic representation lands as more than a checkbox in an otherwise m/f-and-poly series, and Aurora’s arc gives real emotional stakes for readers who’ve followed the whole series. Set against that: the plot reads thinner than the five books before it, the power dynamic draws real criticism for repeating rather than building on earlier entries, and the ensemble energy that made the series fun gives way to a more insular two-hander. If you’re finishing Wicked Villains, this is worth the trip; if you’re starting Katee Robert cold, it isn’t the entry point. Check Queen Takes Rose on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, Queen Takes Rose ranks as a solid series-closer in sapphic dark mafia romance — strong on chemistry, sapphic representation, and heat, thinner on plot than its predecessors, and best approached by readers finishing Wicked Villains rather than starting cold.

The Evidence Scorecard

Overall ★★★☆☆ 3.4/5

• ✓ 3.59 average across 15,217 Goodreads ratings
• ✓ Sapphic rep and Aurora’s arc near-unanimous praise
• ✓ Three stars is the largest rating bucket, at 33%
• ✓ Thin plot and repetitive dynamic recur in critical reviews

Romance ★★★☆☆ 3.4/5

• ✓ Domme/submissive chemistry named a specific highlight
• ✓ Vengeance-driven second-chance thread adds real tension
• ✓ 5/5 heat keeps the pairing squarely on the page
• ✓ Central romance called flat by two independent reviewers

Characters ★★★☆☆ 3.5/5

• ✓ Aurora’s arc praised as full-circle and genuinely complex
• ✓ Malone lands as Carver City’s most feared leader
• ✓ Dual POV gives both leads real interiority
• ✓ Wider Carver City ensemble recedes into a two-hander

Writing ★★★☆☆ 3.5/5

• ✓ No dominant prose or editing complaint found
• ✓ Fairy-tale-villain retelling concept praised as creative
• ✓ Trinkets and Tales’ indie production holds up structurally
• ✓ Plot itself criticized as thin relative to earlier entries

Emotional Impact ★★★☆☆ 3.5/5

• ✓ Mother’s 20-year coma and mercy decision land as real stakes
• ✓ Series-conclusion payoff resonates for six-book readers
• ✓ Grief and parental abandonment given real weight
• ✓ Flat central romance undercuts stakes for newer readers

Heat Level ★★★★★ 5/5

• ✓ romance.io top band, “explicit and plentiful”
• ✓ Pain play, bondage, and orgasm deprivation on the page
• ✓ Reader-confirmed as a highlight, not incidental
• ✓ One reviewer found it milder than the series’ peak

Ending ★★★★☆ 4.2/5

• ✓ Resolved HEA with no cliffhanger found in the sweep
• ✓ Reads as the emotional close of the six-book main line
• ✓ One reviewer’s only regret was the series ending
• ✓ Only a shorts collection follows, nothing left dangling

Re-read Value ★★★☆☆ 3.3/5

• ✓ Dual-narrator audiobook praised for performance
• ✓ Series completionists have real reason to revisit Carver City
• ✓ Sleeping-Beauty-retelling concept rewards a second look
• ✓ One reviewer skimmed scenes rather than rereading them